MORE THAN A WORKOUT

Responsibility for Self

If you are after an optimal state of health and fitness, there is a lot you must consider. You are a multi-dimensional being, and the constituents that make up your existence—your life—are rooted in the psychological and spiritual spaces, as much as the physical. Running across earth’s crust and meeting gravitational forces with a variety of positions covers, in many cases, all of your physical fitness needs. This is particularly true when your activity is accompanied by sensible programming, healthy mechanics, and effective recovery strategies. But your sense of responsibility for improvement cannot be limited to physicality, it needs to regard other aspects of your life as well.

A Need for Transformation

A significant portion of our society is suffering from largely preventable diseases like type-2 diabetes, and obesity. According to the Center for Disease Control, between 2017 and 2018, about 42.4% of the U.S. adult population were obese (source). The National Diabetes Statistics Report (2020) indicates about 88 million, or 10.5% of the U.S. population is contending with type-2 diabetes, and about 34.5% of the U.S. adult population is pre-diabetic (source). Upon careful observation of the lives lived by those suffering with many of our nation’s most common diseases, it is evident most are in need of a lifestyle transformation in which physical exercise plays a significant, yet limited role.

Endurance

The human body was designed to thrive off of long distance movement (moderately paced runs with the occasional burst of intensity). Before the industrialization of society, before technology enabled us to tap a screen and order food without the expenditure of a single calorie, we were forced to hunt and gather. The process of food seeking was calorically expensive, and therefore served to keep our energy balance in check without the need for “exercise”: use energy to find food, gain energy by eating food, repeat ad infinitum. The elimination of the need to hunt and gather has freed us from maintaining the arduous cycle that is energy balance. However, eliminating a significant amount of movement—and therefore energy use—produces a plethora of negative consequences directly affecting the entire body.

By integrating a quality running/jogging program into your weekly practice, you will greatly enhance your cardiac and respiratory systems. However the benefits of running and jogging extend well past your heart and lungs: there are visual, psychological, skeletal, emotional, and even immunological enhancements resultant from sensibly paced and sustained forward locomotion.

Strength

In addition to running, your body was designed to effectively bear external weight. Despite the fact our technology has evolved to such a degree that we no longer need to lift and carry logs in an effort to build a shelter, or sling a successfully hunted animal over our shoulders and walk it miles to our tribe, our bodies can still greatly benefit from a quality resistance training program.

Resisting earth’s gravitational force with our body alone (calisthenics), or with external weights (weight training), does more than develop your muscular system. It also helps strengthen bones and tendons. This strengthening of your entire system creates a durable organism: you’ll be less likely to fracture from falls; able to lift, carry, and manage heavy loads with reduced risk of injury, and travel with more than two grocery bags from your car to your kitchen.

Mobility

Climbing, swimming, swinging, bending, lifting, rolling, hanging, falling, chasing, playing, and climbing — natural movement patterns experienced—to one degree or another—when your existence depends on successfully negotiating a natural environment. These movement patterns dictated by the need for survival call for full range of motion of all joints in your body, which prevents stiffness, pain, patterning, and compromised joint positioning. Since most of our existence is spent in a seated position—work, driving, eating, relaxation—our joints and muscles, including our nervous system, become adapted to sitting. The seated position passively contracts some muscles, and inhibits others. It places our joints in a fixed range of motion we tend have trouble getting out of in an effort to safely and optimally take on activities like walking, running, lifting, and climbing. Overtime this faulty positioning results in the degradation of tissues responsible for eliminating friction between our joints, and causes chronic pain in areas like the hips, knees, lower back, and neck. This pain typically serves as an antecedent to surgery (think about the prevalence of hip/knee replacements) which is costly and sometimes leads to further complications.

By meeting all of your movement needs, you will reduce the odds of developing chronic nagging joint pain. You will perform and feel better, and reduce your risk of injury. If you find yourself experiencing chronic pain, there is a good chance it is coming from a lack of movement. If you experience pain when you move, it is likely because you are already out of position and require repositioning of your posture via repositioning techniques and lifestyle changes.

Mindset

You are nothing without a strong mindset, a growth oriented mindset, a healthy mindset; one that understands the important role discomfort plays in life and appreciates a worthy challenge. What good is strength and endurance if you succumb to unhealthy coping mechanisms at the first sign of real life stressors? When used appropriately, sensibly induced discomfort serves as an amazing tool to forge mental and emotional resilience. The mind, like the body, has a wonderful ability to adapt to a variety of situations, but as a culture we rarely exercise this ability. Training these aspects of our being are typically reserved for those in sports and the military. In a natural setting we would not always have a say in when or how long we’d want to expose ourselves to discomfort: if it’s raining and cold, you’d still have to go out and forage for food; existence of the unpleasant sensations accompanied by intense heat and humidity would not eliminate the very real hunger pains you might experience, and you would be forced to continue to move under unfavorable circumstances.

Making space for discomfort in your life and successfully taking on challenges will develop confidence in your physical and mental ability to perform outside of the training environment; it will prepare you to take a stand for yourself, or another, when needed, and people around you will sense your growth which commands respect.

Reviews

Follow the journey.